COORS COURTS QUEERS

But Critics Say, "Don't Feed
the Hand that Bites You"

Copyright 1997 Bruce Mirken
3030 words

Coors Brewing Co. wants the gay and lesbian community's business, and
with the cracks growing in a two-decade-long gay boycott of the Colorado
brewer, they are starting to get it. To many, including some lesbian and
gay Coors employees, the community is simply rewarding a company that has
cleaned up its act in many ways, becoming a leader in gay-friendly employment
practices. But others--including leading experts on the radical right--warn
that by buying Coors products queers are helping to finance some of America's
most viciously homophobic far right activists.

Both are right. Yes, Coors' workplace policies dealing with sexual orientation
are now among the best in corporate America. But, despite the company's
claims to the contrary, the S.F. Bay Times has found clear evidence that
the brewery's operations continue to finance the Coors family's radical
right activism in a big way.

Although some minorities, including gay activists, had begun boycotting
Coors as early as the late 1960s, the boycott didn't become a national
coalition effort until a 1977 labor dispute got the AFL-CIO involved. Union
organizers charged the company with maintaining an oppressive environment
where workers were given lie detector tests and questioned about their
political beliefs and sexual orientation and where discrimination against
women, people of color and gays and lesbians was rampant. For years the
gay community, African-Americans, Latinos and labor stood together against
the brewery.

But during the eighties the company began mending fences with the aggrieved
constituencies, adopting nondiscrimination policies, donating to minority
organizations and making peace with the unions. One by one the various
groups dropped out of the boycott, leaving the gay community pretty much
alone. Lately, gay organizations have also started to waver.

Even the company's harshest critics agree that the working environment
for queer Coors employees has indeed improved dramatically. The company
now offers domestic partnership benefits, has a nondiscrimination policy
specifically including sexual orientation and a recognized queer employees'
group, known as LAGER (Lesbian And Gay Employee Resource). Coors brags
that it is the only U.S. brewery to pass the "Lavender Screen"
test of gay-friendly policies developed by investment counselor Howard
Tharsing of V Management in Oakland. Tharsing calls the company "one
of the most progressive in terms of its employment policies."

Last year Coors persuaded the California Association of Pride, Inc.
(CAPI), the statewide association of lesbian and gay pride celebrations,
to end its boycott, and company spokeswoman Cinde Dolphin notes that Coors
has sponsored gay pride events in cities around the country, including
Boston, Denver and Ft. Lauderdale. In California it has sponsored pride
events in San Jose, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs and is actively promoting
its products to gay bars and restaurants.

And Coors is beginning to crack longstanding resistance in the queer
press, with a growing number of publications accepting advertisements.
That includes several Bay Area magazines and newspapers which have accepted
what Dolphin calls an "image ad" aimed at polishing the brewery's
reputation. It depicts three handsome young men sitting at a table in a
bar, with the caption, "Perception isn't always reality" and
text that touts the company's gay-friendly employment practices.

Coors, Dolphin says, "has demonstrated true commitment to the gay
and lesbian community in action, which other brewers haven't."

In terms of employment practices that certainly seems to be the case.
But that, critics argue, is only half the story.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

The large and wealthy Coors family, whose estimated $770 million fortune
was created by the brewery, has long been a major bankroller of homophobic
radical right organizations, and the history of Coors support of the far
right is extensive and well documented. In "Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing
Movements and Political Power in the United States" author Sara Diamond
writes, "The archetypical right-wing funding conduit was the Coors
beer company. Chief executive Joseph Coors poured millions of dollars into
dozens of evangelical and New Right organizations and established a pattern
for other corporate funders."

Among other things, Joseph Coors helped launch the Heritage Foundation,
one of Washington's largest and most influential right-wing think tanks.
In recent years Heritage has opposed the "don't ask, don't tell"
policy regarding gay and lesbian servicemembers, urging Congress to maintain
an outright ban, and advocated "parents' rights"--including shielding
kids from AIDS education that discusses "sexual acts traditionally
regarded by parents as perverse and immoral." The foundation's Web
site offers convenient links to other groups, allowing users to download
virulently antigay documents from organizations like the Family Research
Council.

But the Coors family's involvement in the radical right is not merely
ancient history. Donations to homophobic groups continue, and several family
members are actively involved in the movement. Grover Coors, for example,
sits on the board of the Heritage Foundation, notes Russ Bellant, author
of the 1991 book "The Coors Connection." And Jeffrey Coors is
chairman of the board of the Free Congress Foundation--the group which,
according to right wing-watcher Chip Berlet of Cambridge, Massachussetts-based
Political Research Associates, "clearly created to a great extent
this myth of a 'homosexual agenda.'" Free Congress' broadcast and
cable TV network, National Empowerment Television, airs a monthly program
featuring the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed and another, ominously titled
"Straight Talk," produced in association with the ultra-homophobic
Family Research Council.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Coors, Holland (Holly) Coors, Darden Coors and Carin
Coors are all members of the secretive Council for National Policy, and
Linda Tafoya, executive director of the Adolph Coors Foundation, is believed
to be a member as well. Jeffrey and Holly are members of the CNP's board
of governors.

And just what is the CNP? Here is how the Institute for First Amendment
Studies describes the group in a report published last August: "Clothed
in secrecy since its founding in 1981, the Council for National Policy
is a virtual who's who of the Hard Right. Its membership comprises the
Right's Washington operatives and politicians, its financiers and its hard-core
religious arm. The Hard Right utilizes the CNP's three-times-a-year-secret
meetings to plan its strategy for implementing the radical right agenda."
Members include anti-ERA crusader Phyllis Schlafly, Iran-Contra defendant
Oliver North, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, Family Research
Council head Gary Bauer, Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese, conservative
fundraiser Richard Viguerie and two ferociously homophobic ex-Congressmen,
Robert Dornan and William Dannemeyer. "It is a great organization,"
Schlafly says in a promotional video obtained by IFAS. "It has all
the right people in it."

Holly and Jeffrey Coors also sit on the Board of Advisors of the Nevada
Policy Research Institute, another conservative group which, among other
things, promotes "school choice" plans under which the government
would pay parents to send their children to religious schools.

One of the most important things that Coors family members bring to
their radical right involvements is money--money that comes both in the
form of personal donations and grants or loans from two Coors-endowed and
family-controlled foundations, the Adolph Coors Foundation and the Castle
Rock Foundation. And the family's money comes from the brewery.

According to the company's 1995 annual report (the 1996 report is not
yet available), all 1,260,000 shares of Class A (voting) stock in the Adolph
Coors Company is held by the Adolph Coors, Jr. Trust, controlled by William
Coors, Joseph Coors, Joseph Coors Jr., Jeffrey Coors and May Coors Tucker.
Of the roughly 36 million shares of Class B (nonvoting) stock, the Adolph
Coors Foundation (with several family members as trustees) owns 732,413.
Various family members, as individuals and through various family trusts,
own at least half of the remainder.

In 1995 the company paid dividends to its stockholders of $.50 per share.
That means the Coors family bankroll grew by roughly $9.5 million just
from stock dividends alone, not including salaries and other business arrangements
involving the brewery (which, as will be seen later, can be important).

While Coors family members often reach into their personal checkbooks
for donations to the homophobic right, it is the two brewery-endowed foundations
that sometimes put up the really big bucks. In the Heritage Foundation's
1994 financial summary, for example, the Castle Rock Foundation is listed
as a "Founder," signifying a donation of $100,000 or more. In
1995 Castle Rock announced a $700,000 loan to the Free Congress Foundation,
and Free Congress's 1994-95 financial statement notes that an unnamed Castle
Rock trustee is also a member of the Free Congress Foundation board, prompting
speculation that Jeffrey Coors greased the wheels for the loan.

FOLLOW THE MONEY II: "THEY LIE! THEY LIE!"

In its communications with the gay community, Coors representatives
stress the separation between the brewery and the foundations and individual
family members involved in the activities of the homophobic right. "None
of the profits from Coors Brewing Co. go to any organizations that are
antigay," Dolphin declares. As far as family members go, "of
course they have the right to choose whoever they would give money to,"
but "there are very few family members that are still a part of the
Coors Brewing Co. The only one that is on the payroll of the Coors Brewing
Co. that I believe has been accused of making some conservative donations
is William Coors, who's the chairman of the board." She doesn't deny,
though, that many other family members have stock holdings.

Similarly, Dolphin insists, both the Adolph Coors Foundation and the
Castle Rock Foundation are entirely separate from the brewery. "None
of the profits from Coors Brewing Co. go to the foundations at all,"
she declares.

And William Coors, Dolphin adds, "has a son who is very openly
gay and I know for a fact that he has made donations to organizations that
would be perceived as being very pro-gay." She adds that another member
of this "very diverse family," the late Dallas Coors, was a founding
director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund.

But specialists who track the radical right remain skeptical of the
supposed separation between the brewery and the Coors family's far-right
involvements. "There's no doubt that members of the Coors family,
who make a great deal of money from Class A and Class B stock, continue
to fund right-wing organizations that are very homophobic, and sometimes
viciously so," argues Chip Berlet. "To be perfectly honest, the
Coors people who are going around and saying there's no association are
simply liars."

A leading West Coast fundie-watcher, Project Tocsin co-founder Jerry
Sloan, doesn't mince words. "They lie! They lie! They lie!" he
exclaims. "The thing is, their reputation was so bad they had to make
some of these changes. It's a smokescreen to deceive people."

Is Coors being deceptive? A close examination of Jeffrey Coors' relationship
with the brewery suggests that the answer is yes..

Jeffrey is perhaps the most visible radical right activist in the family.
As board chair of the Free Congress Foundation and a member of the board
of governors of the Council on National Policy, Jeffrey Coors isn't just
a follower of the extreme right, he is a leader. And those positions, Bellant
says, by definition mean he is bringing in big bucks to the organizations.
"If you're not giving a lot of money to Free Congress or Heritage,
you're not going to be on the board," he says. "You've got to
bring something to these groups," though now "the money is harder
to trace."

To hear Dolphin tell it, Jeffrey Coors has no relationship to the brewery.
"Jeffrey Coors is not associated with Coors Brewing Co. at all,"
she declares. "He is an executive--I can't tell you his exact title--with
ACX Technologies, which is a company that deals specifically with ceramics
and deals with high-tech industry. He is not associated with Coors Brewing
Co. at all. He may have some stock options, but I would think it would
be very minimal because he is heavily invested in ACX Technologies."

Asked if ACX Technologies' business involves supplying packaging or
other products or services to the brewery, Dolphin states flatly. "No.
Absolutely not. They're in ceramics and we use none of their ceramics in
our packaging."

So do any of the proceeds from Coors beer sales go to Jeffrey Coors
in any fashion? Hardly any, Dolphin says. "He might be a minority
stockholder, so maybe a zillionth of a penny [of the price of a six-pack]
might go to Jeff."

But the 1995 Coors annual report and documents filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission by ACX Technologies tell a different story.

ACX, it turns out, is a direct offspring of the brewery, born in late1992,
when "the Adolph Coors Co., the holding company for Coors Brewing
Co.... spun off its aluminum, packaging, ceramics and other technology
businesses" to form the new company, the Coors statement explains.
ACX's board includes Jeffrey Coors, who doubles as company president, William
Coors (chairman of the board and president of Coors Brewing Co.), Joseph
Coors, Joseph Coors, Jr. and John K. Coors. (Interestingly, one non-family
board member, John D. Beckett, also sits on the Free Congress Foundation
board which Jeffrey Coors chairs).

According to SEC documents filed July 30, 1996, Jeffrey Coors is the
largest individual stockholder in ACX. All of the other shares in the company
are held by Coors family members, various Coors family trusts and the Adolph
Coors Foundation (which includes Jeffrey, William and Peter Coors on its
board).

And ACX does a whopping business with Coors Brewing Co. According to
the Coors annual report, ACX has been a key supplier of almuninum for Coors'
beer cans, while "most of the secondary packaging for Coors Brewing
Co.'s products, including bottle labels and paperboard products, is supplied
by Graphic Packaging Corporation, an ACX subsidiary." The brewery
also purchases 100 million pounds of refined cornstarch annually from another
ACX subsidiary, in an agreement that runs through1997.

This is a substantial enterprise. The statement notes that the cost
of aluminum cans constitutes 39% of the purchase price of canned beer,
and in 1995 the brewery's purchases from ACX totalled $240 million. In
1996, with some aluminum contracts shifted to another supplier, purchases
were projected at $145 million--and even this reduced amount equals nearly
10 percent of the brewery's net sales.. The statement gives no hint of
any plans to change the ongoing packaging or cornstarch contracts with
ACX.

In other words, a big part of Jeffrey Coors' business depends on sales
of Coors beer. Furthermore, the Coors annual report details numerous other
business and financial entanglements between ACX and the brewery, involving,
among other things, natural gas, wastewater treatment, and real estate
management and development.

Another substantial conduit through which Coors brewery money flows
to conservative causes is the company's political action committee, called
PACE (Political Action Coors Employees). According to reports filed with
the Federal Elections Commission for the 1994 and 1996 election cycles,
PACE is funded almost entirely by senior company officials, including board
members, executives and managers, with the largest donor being president
and board chair William Coors.

While many corporate PACs distribute money to both parties, hoping to
stay in good graces no matter who is in power, PACE's contributions have
gone almost exclusively to Republicans. And these Republican contributees
are a distinctly conservative lot, with gay-friendly moderates like William
Weld of Massachussetts and former Wisconsin Congressman Steve Gunderson
notably absent from the list.

Among those who did receive PACE money, though, was New Hampshire Sen.
Bob Smith, often considered the Senate's second most virulent homophobe
after Jesse Helms. Smith is one of the few senators who voted against the
Ryan White CARE Act, and was seen in Debra Chassnoff's 1996 documentary
"It's Elementary" delivering a furious antigay tirade on the
Senate floor.

Incumbents receiving PACE contributions in 1996 formed a solid wall
of opposition to the narrowly-defeated Employment Nondiscrimination Act,
which would have barred most employment discrimination based on sexual
orientation, and an equally solid wall of support for the Defense of Marriage
Act. Most received ratings of 90 percent or better from the Christian Coalition
and 20 percent or less from groups like AIDS Action Council, Human Rights
Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

TO BOYCOTT OR NOT TO BOYCOTT?

So does all this right wing activity generated by brewery money mean
that the queer boycott of Coors should continue? Opinions vary wildly.

"I don't think that's a big issue, I really don't," investment
manager Tharsing says. "I look at the company and its policies. The
ownership of Coors by these family members hasn't created a homophobic
environment at the company." Tharsing urges the gay community to "reward
the companies that extend themselves" by providing domestic partner
benefits so that other firms will follow.

"America means you can give money anywhere you want to," adds
Coors flavor analyst and outgoing LAGER co-chair Leslie Wright. "I
can give my money to all the gay causes I can, and so can someone who's
more conservative... If they gave their personal money I wouldn't have
a problem with it."

Wright, Dolphin (who also identifies as a member of LAGER), and officials
of CAPI also cite another argument: That many large corporations donate
to right-wing causes, so it is unfair to single out Coors.

But fundie-watcher Sloan argues, "Some portion of that dollar [spent
on Coors beer] is going to be used against me as a gay person. I'm not
that suicidal to knowingly buy products where the money ends up being used
against me as a gay person." Acknowledging that some other corporations
also fund right wing causes, he adds, "With the corporate conglomerates
it is often difficult to trace how companies spend their money... but we
know about Coors. Why should translesbigay people buy Coors products knowing
the money will be used to try to deny us our rights?"

To Berlet, the choice depends on individual conscience and priorities.
"It comes down to whether a particular corporation is so involved
in an arena that's so important to you that you draw the line," he
reflects. "That's a deeply personal choice. Our point is that there
is a misrepresentation of the evidence, a systematic effort to hide the
evidence and direct attention elsewhere. What I say is, look at the evidence.
Don't just believe the public relations cover-up."